Following the exodus from Bangalore and other cities due to rumours
generated through SMS and MMS, the MHA banned bulk SMS/MMS on August 17.
Initially, the Department of Telecommunications had allowed only five
SMS per day, per mobile, that was increased to 20 per day on August 23.

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

If you’re not already particularly picky about who you friend on Facebook, you might want to think about rejiggering those privacy settings. It's not the backdoor access that the FBI has been pushing for, but US District Judge William Pauley III has now ruled that it and other law enforcement agencies are entitled to view your Facebook profile if one of your "friends" gives them permission to do so.

That’s because all of that data that you think is personal really isn’t that personal after all, according to the Judge. "Colon’s legitimate expectation of privacy ended when he disseminated posts to his friends because those friends were free to use the information however the wanted including sharing it with the Government."

The researcher claims that the flaw has actually been present in Apple’s iPhonesoftware ever since the first iPhone was launched in 2007, but has failed to have been picked up on by anybody, including Apple it seems.

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Seth Horvitz ordered a Westinghouse 39-inch LCD for about $320 from a third-party electronics seller on Amazon and was shocked to see what he got a military-grade assault rifle.

He received a delivery via UPS ground, a HUGE oblong box that arrived at this door step.

When I saw some metal parts inside the box, I thought, ‘Maybe this is a TV stand or mount or something,’” Horvitz said in a phone interview withWired.

“When I realized it was an assault rifle, it was pure shock and disbelief.”

Horvitz immediately contacted D.C. police to inform them about the situation, they came in a confiscated the box which contained a semi-automatic Sig Sauer716 patrol rifle. The police informed Horvitz that the gun was illegal in the District of Columbia.

Saturday, August 11, 2012

"I am sorry Papa. I am committing suicide," said a text message from Rekha Singh, second year polytechnic student in electronics stream, to her father Ranjeet, a WCL manager at Kamptee. The 22-year-old Rekha had been afraid to face her father since she had lied to him about her repeated failures. She jumped to her death from the third-floor balcony of her hostel within a minute of sending the SMS.

Thursday, August 9, 2012

26-year-old Slovenian hacker known as Iserdo stands thought to have been behind the Mariposa botnet is on trial in Slovenia, charged with having masterminded an international cybercrime gang.

At its height, the Mariposa botnet infected up to 12.7 million PCs, with more than half of the Fortune 1,000 companies believed to have been compromised, including 40 major banks. Once a computer had been compromised and brought into the botnet, operators could steal information from innocent users - including credit card details and banking passwords.

On Friday, Reuters blog platform was hacked with false posts and on Saturday, the @ReutersTech account on Twitter was taken over and renamed @TechMe. False tweets were sent before it was taken down.

The first attack came Friday after Syrian hackers loyal to President Bashar al-Assad allegedly gained access to Reuters’ blogging platform, which they used to post a fake interview with rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) leader Riad al-Assad. The interview essentially said the general was withdrawing troops after a battle.

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

New Delhi: An inactive website of the Southern Railways www.southernrailway.gov.in has been defaced apparently by Pakistani hackers.

The hacker group that calls itself ‘Pak Cyber Pyrates’ replaced the home page of the website with a page with content that denounces India’s role in Kashmir.

The official Southern Railways website moved to a new domain www.sr.indianrailways.gov.in back in 2010.

Inactive websites are a soft target for hackers as they are not constantly monitored. Recently the hacker group Anonymous had targeted an inactive Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) website accusing the company of censoring content on the Internet.

Indian and Pakistani hacking groups are engaged in a cyber war of sorts with websites in both the countries being regularly attacked and defaced.

Monday, August 6, 2012

Never respond to emails that request personal financial information
Banks or e-commerce companies generally personalise emails, while phishers do not. Phishers often include false but sensational messages ("urgent - your account details may have been stolen") in order to get an immediate reaction. Reputable companies don't ask their customers for passwords or account details in an email. Even if you think the email may be legitimate, don't respond - contact the company by phone or by visiting their website.